


The Howler

by bleustocking



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Background Relationships, Cryptozoology, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24309499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleustocking/pseuds/bleustocking
Summary: It wasn’t a half-bad scheme, this partnership Ethan and Sir Malcolm had fallen into after Vanessa's death. They went all over the world and hunted monsters.Such was the condition of their world that they were never without work.
Relationships: Ethan Chandler/Sir Malcolm Murray
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	The Howler

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psychomachia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/gifts).



The wind came rushing through the mountains and stole the smoke from Ethan’s cigarette. He twitched, but didn’t relight it. The sky was getting dark; soon the monsters would be abroad. 

Malcolm placed a hand on his shoulder and Ethan twisted his head towards him and gave him a brief half-smile. It wasn’t a half-bad scheme, this partnership they’d fallen into after Vanessa had passed. They went all over the world and hunted monsters. Such was the condition of their world that they were never without work. 

This mission had come about because of a letter a doctor had written them from a tiny Missouri town in the Ozark Mountains, far from anywhere. The place was home to many superstitions, but the one that had drawn Ethan and Malcolm was that of the Howler. 

Descriptions of the creature varied -- it could be a huge bearlike thing with glowing red eyes, or a pitch-black cat with claws like knives, or a giant shadow-like man. Some said it had horns like the devil. The only consistent thing about it was the way it screamed through the mountainous region. Everyone had heard echoes of it on some dark night and the sound of it stayed with them, always. 

Generations of mountain folk had scared their children into obedience with threats of a visit from the Howler. Legend had it that the famed outdoorsman, Daniel Boone, had once taken a shot at the Howler-- and missed. 

Ethan would have dismissed it all as the stuff of fairy stories, but for the letter Doc Edison had sent. He described how the Howler had been taking livestock from the community and then had moved on to the children. Seven missing since September. 

Even if it was just a over-large black bear, Ethan reasoned that Malcolm would enjoy going back to his big game hunting pursuits. So he had accepted the doctor’s plea for help and they had set off from Baltimore, where they had just put down an undead spirit of a famous author (that Ethan would’ve admitted to liking, before he’d had to put a silver bullet through his head.) 

“You reckon it’ll come?” Ethan asked, letting his cigarette fall to the ground and crushing it under his boot. Malcolm raised his brows silently. The decade since they had left London had changed the older man. He was more given to silences and dark moods. The fact that he had buried three grown children, and still lived, ate at him. He was a man haunted, though there was still vigor in his old bones and his grey eyes were bright with the spirit of adventure. 

Ethan didn’t know how to comfort him. He barely knew how to patch himself up and keep going. How could he help another? 

But keep going they had. Ten long years and still the hurt didn’t fade. Ethan suspected it never would, for either of them. 

“Well, we are the most tempting of bait,” Malcolm said finally, more than a hint of irony in his voice. 

Overhead, the moon slipped out from a bank of clouds. It was waxing and not yet full, but still Ethan shivered. The smell of danger was all around him. 

Ethan had made sure there was a secure little cellar in the doctor’s house that could hold him tomorrow night. But tonight, he was free from such restrictions, under the dark sky, dimly lit with stars. 

His senses, already on high alert, informed him that something was moving through the trees. He nudged Malcolm, who grunted and came to attention. The rustling grew louder. Someone -- something -- was coming toward them at high speed. 

A scream tore through the mountains, redoubling its strength as it echoed around them. Later, Ethan would say it was like the sound of a mountain lion, but more throaty and deep. The Howler did indeed howl, and the sound of it was terrible, digging into the shivering heart of any living thing. 

Ethan shot at the dark shadow that was moving through the trees, and Malcolm did as well. 

Ethan thought that one of the bullets must’ve gotten it. The shadow dropped away abruptly. They waited for a moment to see if it got back up, but nothing moved. Ethan put down his rifle and moved toward where the thing had fallen. 

He motioned to Malcolm to stay put. The doctor would need to be informed that they’d bagged the thing. 

“Don’t do anything foolish, Ethan,” Malcolm warned and Ethan flashed him a smile. 

“Never do, sir,” he said, though that was a lie and they both knew it. Ethan made his way carefully toward the line of trees. Neither of them was familiar with the terrain, and even after examining maps, it paid to be careful. When he arrived at the place where the shadow had fallen, he found nothing but a mess of leaves. 

Sighing in frustration, Ethan crouched down and examined the area. Thus occupied, it took him a moment to recognize Malcolm’s shouting. 

He looked up and saw a black shape leaping towards him. It was shaped like a man but enormous, out of proportion to everything. Its eyes burned red and hot. 

It was certainly _not_ a bear. 

Ethan only had time to get one shot in. The flash of his rifle did nothing but illuminate the scarred and angry face of his foe -- humanlike, but not human at all -- before it leapt on him. Ethan found himself being dragged across the forest floor and then -- the cold wind against his face. There was a sharp drop off and he was falling, tumbling through the air. 

The only emotion he felt as he fell was anger. He didn’t want to die here. Not here and not like this. He’d gone through too much for that to happen. 

And most of all, he didn’t want Malcolm to lose another person. 

*

When Ethan woke, it was daylight again. Through the brambles he had crashed into, he saw that it was getting to late afternoon. His entire body was covered in cuts and bruises, and his entire back felt like a giant bruise. When he tried to rise, a shooting pain in his leg brought him down again with a sharp curse. His leg was broken. 

He felt a shot of fury, mindless and howling, run through him. Some of it was directed at that fucker of a monster. But most of the anger was against himself. He had fucked it up --deviating from the plan. Getting cocky. Getting hurt. True, he’d been hurt much worse before, but this was bad because it had been preventable. And he’d left Malcolm up on the mountain without a backup. He had failed. 

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself. His heart beat strongly in his chest and Ethan felt his head began to swim. He was so tired of it all. 

He doubted he would be able to get out of the gorge he’d found himself in before dark. And after that -- who could say? The Ozark woods would have two monsters prowling around, not just one. 

The change was coming in early. Ethan could feel it in his blood, sluggishly moving around his body. He thought he could hear the distant sound of someone calling his name. He ignored it. He didn’t want to come upon someone as a wolf. He couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t tear their well-meaning throat out. 

Exhaustion hit Ethan hard and he lay back against the brush. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, he saw Vanessa sitting on a rock beside him. She was dressed in white and her long dark hair was loose. She looked angelic. Happy. With a pang, he knew it was just a dream. None of it was real. 

“It is a dream, Mr. Chandler. But it doesn’t mean it’s not real,” Vanessa said, her voice low and intimate. Ethan smiled and raised his hand in defeat. 

“You have the advantage of me, Miss Ives. I would rise, but...” Ethan raised his arms and let them fall again. 

“Do you miss me, Mr. Chandler?” Her voice was lightly teasing, but there was a hint of curiosity that made Ethan shift uncomfortably. 

“Every day,” he said instantly. “I’ve not looked at anyone since -- you died.” 

“That’s foolish,” she said bluntly. “I’m dead. I won’t come back, no matter how you wish for it.” 

“I know how death works, Miss Ives,” Ethan said. “I wouldn’t want you to come back.” 

“I was in such pain in the end. I wanted to go, even though I thought death would be dark and I would be alone. It wasn’t true,” she said, and blinked. Her green eyes were so bright. She seemed to gather herself up after a moment and said, “Look after Malcolm, would you? He needs you.” 

“Sir Malcolm doesn’t need anyone,” Ethan replied. 

“No. You know that’s not true,” Vanessa said softly. 

Ethan closed his eyes and when he opened them again, Vanessa was gone, and everything Ethan could have said to her was gone as well. It hurt to think about it -- the loss and the absence. Only Malcolm knew what that loss felt like. 

But he didn’t have long to dwell on it -- it was almost sunset and the change was coming. 

It always hurt, changing. And the process was slow. After all, it took time for every bone in his body to break and reshape itself. His already-broken leg did as well, but the transformation healed it back. His organs twisted and reshaped themselves into new positions. His skin tore itself loose and fur emerged. His fingernails fell out and claws replaced them. But most of all, it was his mind that changed. The human part of his mind stepped back. The wolf took over. 

Ethan threw back his head and howled his agony and grief into the crisp, autumnal air. 

His quarry answered. Ethan scented the air, satisfied. With his new senses, he could track it down exactly. And with his still-human senses, he felt rage and the desire for revenge. He would get it and make sure it suffered before it died. 

*

The Howler was stalking the party that was looking for Ethan. Distantly, Ethan could make out voices talking, calling his name. Malcolm’s voice. 

He tried not to mind it, or the bestial longing he had to come upon them and eat his fill. He had a different prey. He had a different mission. He would control himself long enough to --

As a human, Ethan was curious about what sort of thing the Howler was. Was it a flesh and blood creature or did it belong to the demi-monde? As a wolf, Ethan didn’t give a shit about that. He only knew that it had to be destroyed. Utterly and completely. 

Both his human and wolf sides agreed on that. 

He approached it as it was snuffling through the woods, preparing to throw the party into disorder with its scream. Ethan leaped on its back and began to tear at it.

It was bigger than Ethan was, but it had been taken by surprise. It swiped at him with its rake-like arms, but Ethan locked his jaws upon its throat and refused to let it go. It thrashed and raked him with claws. Once, it grabbed him with its ropey arms and _squeezed._ Ethan felt something inside him crack. But that only infuriated him further. He redoubled his attacks and he felt the creature’s energy begin to fade. Its screams getting quieter and more choked off. 

It stumbled and then fell heavily on him; he yelped and tried to get away. 

The Howler began to dissipate as soon as it fell, leaving a slick of gore in its wake and Ethan struggling in it. He heard distantly the voices of excited men and the sound of shotguns being cocked. They were going to kill him. 

He could barely make out the sound of one voice in particular -- the timbre of Malcolm’s voice. 

The posse made up of the doctor and the local farmers were ready to set the creature on fire, but Malcolm stopped them. He reached down and pulled Ethan out from the gore. Ethan snapped at him weakly, but neither his claws nor teeth tore at Malcolm fully. 

Malcolm threw a horse blanket over the struggling Ethan and held him fast. He whispered to Ethan fiercely to come back to himself. The wolf and Ethan both knew him and recognized his scent. It meant family. It meant home. Malcolm was someone to be protected, not hurt. And through the wilds and tangles of Ethan’s wolf-mind, it was Malcolm’s voice that led him back to humanity. 

The first thing that changed back, Malcolm told him later, was his eyes. 

*

Ethan woke up the next morning in a crisp, clean bed in the doctor’s house. It was a bare white room without much in the way of furnishings, but Ethan could not be happier to be there. Malcolm, who had been sleeping in a chair that he had obviously dragged in from another room, woke up at the sound of Ethan trying to rise. 

“Stop right there, boy,” he said, and Ethan stilled. They eyed each other warily for a moment, before Malcolm shook his head and chuckled wryly. 

“Do you know how I’ve felt, these last two days since I saw you disappear off the side of a mountain? Ethan Chandler, if you had died, I would’ve --” 

“Didn’t mean to be a bother,” Ethan said. His whole body ached. He’d been busted up pretty bad by the fall and then the fight with the Howler. At least his leg had set itself, when he’d turned back. As for the rest of it -- well, he would heal. He always did. 

He looked up to see Malcolm gazing at him with an impossibly tender look in his eyes. 

“Ethan,” Malcolm said, “I don’t know if you’re aware of how much you mean to me, possibly because I haven’t been able to tell you. But you are my only family now. I love you. I hope you know that.” 

Ethan blinked hard. He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel, hearing that. His birth father would have rather died than admit that he cared for Ethan -- had, in fact, done exactly that. And Kaetenay and Ethan had a different connection, one bound by the curse of the werewolf and all the blood between them. 

Sir Malcolm -- Malcolm -- was different, and not only because he was alive and willing to speak the words that innervated every part of Ethan. To be loved! Ethan wiped his eyes with the palm of his hand. 

“I saw Vanessa when I was out,” he said slowly. “Thought I’d about had it and she was waiting for me. But she set me to rights.”

“Oh? And what did she say?”

“Told me not to keep wasting time and get back to it.”

“My girl never minced words,” Malcolm said proudly. He reached out and took Ethan’s scarred hand in his, and pressed a whiskery kiss on Ethan’s forehead. Ethan smiled and felt a little of his weariness ease. 

As he fell back asleep, he thought that traveling the world with Malcolm and slaying monsters wasn’t a half-bad way of spending his life. 

He was glad to do it and would do it for as long as he could. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta, E! 
> 
> [The Ozark Howler](https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Ozark_Howler) is a real thing -- well, for the given value of 'real'. Real for a cryptid, anyway.


End file.
